Recently, as a replacing cycle is shortened due to a rapid development speed of computer hardware and software, a cloud computing technology which virtualizes a computer environment to allow users to share many resources to reduce a replacement necessity of the hardware and software is attracting attention from users.
The cloud computing is a computing style in which IT related functions are provided as services so that even though users do not have a specialized knowledge for infra structure of a supporting technology or do not know a control method thereof, the users may conveniently use the service from the Internet. The cloud computing uses the Internet to satisfy the computing request of the users and Google Apps is an example thereof.
According to the cloud computing, data of the users is safely stored in a server having a high reliability. Further, if a neglected class of people who does not have a device has a computer shared by the public or a computer connected to the Internet, the neglected class of people may enjoy a personal computing environment. Further, restrictions of equipment which should be carried by the personal user or a storage space disappear.
As such a cloud computing develops, a cloud printing system which shares a printer resource appears. A general cloud printing system includes a user terminal which stores a file to be output and transmits the file through a communication network to request a print service and a print server which receives a request for the print service from the user terminal to provide an output material for the received file.
However, according to such a cloud printing system, when a user wants to print a file stored in the user terminal, the user selects one of a plurality of connectable printers, sends a connection request, and then receives an approval for connection from the print server and the print server requests the file to the user terminal and the user terminal transmits the file to the print server to output the file. In this case, there is a problem in that there is a lack of compatibility due to various user environnrients and different printer models depending on the model of the user terminal and the communication type.
That is, an application module of the terminal needs to be developed in accordance with the internal processing of the user terminal and a related driver module of the printer according to the output needs to be connected to the user terminal to be processed. As described above, for the cloud printing system, various driver modules according to the printer model needs to be developed and various application modules according to the model of the user terminal also needs to be developed. Therefore, it is difficult to commercialize and provide the cloud printing system as a service.
Therefore, there is a demand for a cloud printing system and a method for allowing a user terminal to access various printing environments to output contents so that the user can conveniently print at any time when the user wants.
Further, information security is also important as much as the supporting of a convenient printing environment. When a security document is printed in a network environment of the cloud printing system, the security document is always exposed to a risk in that the information is easily leaked. Therefore, when a document is output using the cloud printing system, there is a demand for a printing method which determines a security level of the document based on contents of the document to determine whether to output the document and provides an authentication system which identifies authenticity of the document to the user terminal or the print server to manage the output of the document, thereby supporting the information security.
Currently, a cloud printing market consistently expands as a mobile printing market in accordance with development of the cloud printing market to a mobile environment. However, a cloud-based mobile printing solution of the related art is mainly formed by printer manufacturers, so that only a restricted printer model is supported. That is, if the mobile printing solution is not provided by the same manufacturing company as the print product, the mobile printing solution cannot be used. Therefore, in order to form a mobile output environment, all the existing printing equipment needs to be replaced so that a cost for purchasing the equipment may be incurred.